The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-06-15

instead of raising money to keep enemies OUT
of our New York harbOr, raising money tor
the Bartholdi Statue on bedloe Island, hsuIe
of Liberty with uplifted torch 10
light the way to all who want to come III;
Instead of war antipathies, when you could
not cross the line between the contestants
without fighting your way with Keen steel
or getting through by passes carefully scrutl-
nized at every step by bayonets, You need
only a railroad ticket from New York to
Charleston or New Orleans to go clear
through. and there is no Use for any weapon
sharper or stronger than a steel pen. Since
the Years of time began their roll has there
ever been in about two decades such an over
mastering antlUneS1S as between Cne war Cllne
of complete bitterness and this time Of COM
plete sympathy!
Contrast also the domestic life Of those
times with the domestic life Of these times
Many of YOU were either leaving home or far
away from it. communicating by uncertain
letters. What morning that was when you
left home. Father and mother crying, sis
tiers crying, you smiling outside but crying
inside. Everybody nervous and excited
Bows of the blue and gray! Whether you
started from the banks of the Hudson, or
the Savannah or the Androscoggin, don't
you remember the scenes at the front door,
at the rail car window, on the steamboat
landing. The huzza could not drown out the
suppressed sadness. Don't you remember
those charges to write home often and take
care of yourself. be good boys, and the good.
bye kiss which they thought and you Thought
might be forever Then the homesickness as
You faced the river bank on starlight night
on picket duty and the sly tears which you
wiped off when you heard a group at the
camp fire singing the plantation song about
the old folks at home. The din
ner of hard tack on Thanksgiving
day and the Christmas without any presents,
and the long nights in the hospital so differ
ent from the sickness when you were at home
with mother and sister at the bedside, and
the clock in the hall giving the exact moment
for the medicine, and that forced march
when your legs ached, and your head ached,
and your wounds ached, and, more than all,
your heart ached. Homesickness that had in
it Sutfocation and pang worse than death.
You never got hardened as did the guardsman
in the Crinean war, who heartleSSly wrote
home to his mother:
II do not want to see any more crying let
ters come to the Crimea from YOU Those
have received put into ny rifle after load
ing il; and have fired them az the Russians.
because you appear to have strong dislike
of them. If you have seen rs many killed as
l have, you would not have as many weak
ideas as you now have
You never felt like that. When soldiers
knapSack was found after his death in our
American war there was generally careful
package containing q Bible, few photo
graphs and letters from home. On the other
hand tens of thousands of homes waited for
news. Parents saying: Twenty thousand
killed! wonder il our boy. was among
them" Painting dead away in postoftices
and telegraph stations. Both the ears Of
God filled with the sobs and agonies of kim
dred waiting for news or dropping under
the announcement of bad news. Speak,
swamps of Chickahominy and midnight Ia.
goons and fire-raftS of the Mississippi. and
gunboats before Vicksburg, and woods Of
Antietam, and tell to all the mountains and
villages and rivers and lakes Of North and
South jeremiads of war times that have
never been sylabled.
Beside that domestic perturbation and
homesickness of those days put the sweet
domestcity of to-day. The only camp fire
younow ever sit at is the one kindled in stove
orfurnace or hearth. Instead of a half ration
partaken of by loving family circles in secret
condolences. Oh, now l see who those
letters were for, the letters you, the
young soldier, took so long in your
tent to write and that you were so
particular to put in the mail without anyone
seeing you lest you be teazed by your COM
rades. God spared you to get back. Though
the old people have gone you have home of
your own construction, and you often contrast
those awful absences of tilial and brotherly
and loverly heartbreaks, with your pres
ent residence. which is the dearest place you
will find this side of heaven, the place where
your children were born and the place where
you want to die. To write the figures 1862
set UP four crystals of tears. To write the
figures 1887 stand up four members of your
household, figures of rosy cheeks and flaxen
hair, if I can get them to stand still long
enough
Living soldiers of the North andSouth, take
new and special ordination at this season of
the year to garland the sepulchres Of your
fallen comrades. Nothing is too good for
their memories Turn all the private tombs
and the national cemeteries into gardens. Ie
dead of Malvern Hill, ard Cold Harbor, and
MurfreeSboro, and Manassas Junction, and
Cumberland Gap, and field and hospital re-
ceive these floral offerings Of the living sol
diery.
But they shall come again, all the dead
troops. We sometimes talk. about earthly
military reviews, such as took place in Paris,
in the time Of Marshal Ney, in London, in
the time of Wellington, and in our own land;
but what tame things compared with the
final review. when all the armies of the ages
shall pass for divine and angelic inspection.
st. John says the armies of heaven ride on
white horses, and I don't know but
some of the old cavalry horses Of
earthly battle that were wounded and worn
OuU Ill SeTNlCe nave icouiieSIlOil. IL
would be only fair that, raised up and en-
nobled, they would be resurrected for the
grand review of the Judgment Day. 1t
1t would not take any more power to recon-
struct their bodies than to reconstruct ours,
and should be very glad to see them among
the white horses of Apocalyptic vision. Hark
to the trumpet blast, the reveille of
the last judgment. They come up All the
armies Of all lands and all centuries, on which
ever side they fought, whether for freedom
or despotism, for the right or the wrong.
They come They come Darius and Cyrus
and Sennacherib, and Joshua aud David,
leading forth the armies of Scriptural
times. Hannibal and Hamilcar leading
forth the armies of the Carthaginians
Victor Emanuel and Garibaldi leading OH the
armies of the Italians. Tamerlane and
GhengiS Khan followed by the armies of Asia.
GustavuS Adolphus, and Pto!emy Philopater,
and XerXeS, and Alexander, and Semiramis,
and Washington leading battalion after bat
talon. The dead American armies Of 1TT6
and 1872, and one million of Northern and
Southern dead in our civil war. They come
up. They pass on in review. The six million
fallen in Napoleonic battle, the twelve million
Germans fallen in the thirty years war. the
fifteen million fallen in the war under Sesos
iris, the twenty million fallen in the wars of
Justinian, the twenty-five million fallen in
Jewish wars, the eighty million fallen in the
crllSades, the $50 million fallen in the wars
with Saracens and Turks. The thirty-ive
billion men estimated to have fallen in battle,
enough according to one statistician, if they
stood four abreast, to reach clear around the
earth 442 times.
But we shall have time to see them pass in